Heat treatment to anneal residual stresses during additive manufacturing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10618111-B2
Application number	US-201615008989-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 28, 2016
Priority date	Jan 28, 2016
Publication date	Apr 14, 2020
Grant date	Apr 14, 2020

Abstract

An additive manufacturing system having a heat source for melting powder particles in a desired shape and pattern to produce a product. A secondary heat source is used for heat treating the product to achieve heat treatment. The secondary heat source is used to peen or anneal residual stresses caused by the additive manufacturing process.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An apparatus for producing a product through additive manufacturing with heat treatment, comprising:
a substrate;
the substrate configured to support a layer of powder particles thereon producing an interface between said layer of powder particles and said substrate;
means for melting said powder particles with a fusing beam impressed with a two dimensional pattern containing image information from a first layer to be printed, to fuse said powder particles with said substrate in a desired shape and pattern producing fused powder particles;
a laser for heat treating said layer of powder particles with a laser beam impressed with the two dimensional pattern containing image information from a first layer to be printed to achieve the heat treatment of the product, prior to laying down additional new layers of material;
wherein the heat treatment comprises an annealing operation implemented using the two dimensional pattern using a laser beam from the laser on at least one or more portions of on one or more intermediate layers of the part;
the substrate configured to further support a new layer of powdered material on top of said layer of powder particles;
the means for melting said new layer of powder particles further being used to generate a fusing beam impressed with a two dimensional pattern containing image information from a second layer to be printed, to fuse said new layer of powder particles with said first layer in a desired shape and pattern producing a fused second layer of powder particles;
the laser further operating to heat treat said layer of powder particles and said new layer of powdered material through a second laser beam impressed with a two dimensional pattern containing image information from the second layer to be printed to achieve heat treatment of the product, prior to laying down additional new layers of material; and
wherein the heat treatment applied to layer and said new layer comprises additional annealing operations.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a laser for laser peening at least one of said layer of powder particles and said new layer of powdered material.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an additional laser for performing a laser peening operation.

4. An apparatus for producing a product through additive manufacturing with heat treatment, comprising:
a substrate,
a layer of powder particles on said substrate producing an interface between said layer of powder particles and said substrate,
a heat source which generates a beam having a two dimensional pattern for melting said powder particles to fuse said powder particles with said substrate in a desired shape and pattern,
a laser configured to generate a laser beam including the two dimensional pattern for performing an annealing operation on at least a portion of said fused powder particles to achieve heat treatment, and wherein said fused powder particles form a first intermediate layer of the product upon which an additional layer of powder particles is deposited;
the heat source configured to generate an additional two dimensional pattern for melting an additional quantity of powdered particles deposited on said first intermediate layer, to thus fuse the additional quantity of powdered particles to the first intermediate layer to form a second intermediate layer;
the laser further configured to generate an additional laser beam using the additional two dimensional pattern for heat treating second intermediate layer; and
the laser further configured to perform a peening operation on one or more portions of a different layer of the product.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein said heat source comprises an additional laser.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein said heat source is a diode laser.

7. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein said heat source is a source of electromagnetic radiation.

8. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein said heat source is an electron beam.

9. An apparatus for producing a product through additive manufacturing with heat treatment, comprising:
a substrate;
the substrate configured to support a first layer of powder particles thereon, wherein said first layer of powder particles produces an interface between said first layer of powder particles and said substrate;
means for melting said first layer of powder particles to fuse said first layer of powder particles with said substrate, using an optical beam impressed with a first two dimensional pattern, producing a first quantity of fused powder particles;
a diode laser for heat treating said first quantity of fused powder particles of said first layer of powder particles using a first two dimensional patterned heat treating beam;
the means for melting further configured to melt a second layer of powdered material deposited on said first quantity of fused particles using a second optical beam impressed with a second two dimensional pattern, to thus form a second quantity of fused powder particles which is fused to said first quantity of fused powder particles;
the diode laser further configured to heat treat the first and second quantities of fused powder particles using a second two dimensional heat treating beam impressed with the second two dimensional pattern, to achieve further heat treatment on the product, prior to laying down additional new layers of material; and
wherein the heat treatment implemented using the first and second two dimensional patterned beams comprises annealing operations using a laser beam from the diode laser.

Assignees

• L Livermore Nat Security Llc

Inventors

• Demuth James A
• Bayramian Andrew
• El-Dasher Bassem S
• Farmer Joseph C
• Kramer Kevin J
• Rubenchik Alexander

Classifications

• B33Y30/00

  Apparatus for additive manufacturing; Details thereof or accessories therefor · CPC title

• B22F2998/10

  Processes characterised by the sequence of their steps · CPC title

• B33Y10/00

  Processes of additive manufacturing · CPC title

• B22F3/1055 Primary

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B33Y40/00

  Auxiliary operations or equipment, e.g. for material handling · CPC title